Creative Director
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Wait what. Isn't Golarion calendar divided so that there is 3 months for each of 4 seasons? I kinda assumed you don't need to know stuff like "when is equinox or first day of autumn" when the calendar says "Rova is first month of fall, Neth is last month of fall"?
I don't know much about meteorology or astronomical stuff so maybe I'm missing a major reason of why that doesn't work ._.(well besides stuff like in south and north it should be different length of summer and winter)
I know the leap year thing is off from our calendar enough that it could cause problems. I tried to fix and adjust things in Inner Sea World Guide but haven't looked at that in detail again for nearly five years, and the tone of the original question made it sound broken and made me doubt mnyself. If it DOES still work and you can just map our season starts to it with ease, then yay for working as intended.
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Creative Director
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How much of your book, Sandpoint, Light of the Lost Coast, would I need to keep in mind to run Rise of the Runelords? I know the majority of the information in it is in regards to how things have spun out from Rise's events, but I'm worried if I just disregard it until after running the AP, I'll have missed out on vital characterization information to roleplay the NPCs of Sandpoint.
That depends entirely on how much your players want to engage with the town and explore and interract with NPCs. Rise of the Runelords contains all the info you need to run it without other books. The Sandpoint book provides extra info in case your PCs are interested in doing anything else there.
The self-promotional and egotistical part of me (which is a tiny atrophied being) says you should memorize the Sandpoint book before starting the campaign though. :P
What sounds like best for you is somewhere in between those two extremes.
How much would I have to pay you per hour to come to Wisconsin and help me on a snow run.
Full disclosure, I wouldn't expect you to do much, it's just nice having company.
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What would be your recommendation on how to get rid of the urge to constantly make post-hoc adjustments to a PC you're playing (especially things that are supposed to be set in stone after initial character creation, like character class), especially if a GM has let you in the past and you change your mind about the change?
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Creative Director
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What would be your recommendation on how to get rid of the urge to constantly make post-hoc adjustments to a PC you're playing (especially things that are supposed to be set in stone after initial character creation, like character class), especially if a GM has let you in the past and you change your mind about the change?
If your GM is fine with you making changes, what's the problem?
I don't really have much of a recommendation otherwise, other than to simply look at your character as a person in-world and focus on playing them, rather than their stats? It's okay to try out different tactics you aren't number-crunched for, and if they're enjoyable, that can be something to work toward. I personally MUCH prefer this organic method of building up a character rather than plotting out an advancement before hand, so I guess I don't really have much experience with the "urge to rebuild" that you're asking for advice on, so I alas don't have much advice to offer.
What was the hardest volume you ever did and what made it so challenging?I don't want to get into details there, but it involved having to write an entire adventure in a week with Rob's help.
I think I remember you mentioned a similar thing in this thread a long time ago... The adventure you mentioned that you had to write in a week with Rob's help was City of Seven Spears, right?
I don't know what a snow run is... so I can't say.How much would I have to pay you per hour to come to Wisconsin and help me on a snow run.
Full disclosure, I wouldn't expect you to do much, it's just nice having company.
Shoveling snow.
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Creative Director
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I think I remember you mentioned a similar thing in this thread a long time ago... The adventure you mentioned that you had to write in a week with Rob's help was City of Seven Spears, right?What was the hardest volume you ever did and what made it so challenging?I don't want to get into details there, but it involved having to write an entire adventure in a week with Rob's help.
Yes.
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Creative Director
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Shoveling snow.I don't know what a snow run is... so I can't say.How much would I have to pay you per hour to come to Wisconsin and help me on a snow run.
Full disclosure, I wouldn't expect you to do much, it's just nice having company.
Oh! Hmm. I'm sure I wouldn't want to rob you of the fun and satisfaction of solitary snow runs though!
Dear James Jacobs;
If Krampus met Ithaqua, would he consider him naughty or just weird? Also would they hang out together if Krampus had some spare kids lying around?
How long does writing an adventure path usually take? Usually longer than a week?
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Hmm, is Mhar being stuck at Mhar Massif near Xin-Shalast going to be important for New Thassilon in 2e? After we finally got Mhar stats in final part of Returns, I got idea on what to do with Lost Cities of Golarion Xin-Shalast campaign suggestions and how I would end hypothetical campagin, so I was wondering if I run homebrew campaign and end it in a way that gets Mhar transported to Fire Elemental Plane whether it means I would need to do further homebrewing with New Thassilon in 2e?
On side note, uh, what is new canon's Mhar's connection to Leng now? I mean, old info said that Mhar tried to enter Golarion and Material Plane from Leng originally, while Mhar's bestiary says it was always on Material Plane and tried to get off material plane to fire elemental plane.
Hello James, I have a couple questions but I'll keep them in separate posts.
Why did the Paizo team decide that Succubi are demons as opposed to DnD's devil classification and is there an appropriate lust based devil that now exists to fill that gap? This would extend to lilitu as well, as both seem much more calculating and manipulative in their methods than demons traditionally are.
Is there an in world explanation of magic level caps? For example, why do we never hear about unique spells being created by powerful archmages or large groups that exceed the power of lv 9 spells?
Are there any hidden tidbits of knowledge you can pass on about the Sinctomakti school or Rozenport? I'm planning to redirect my Strange Aeons game towards there, so some extra info could be really helpful. If there's no added info available, even a source of inspiration could be really useful
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Creative Director
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Dear James Jacobs;
If Krampus met Ithaqua, would he consider him naughty or just weird? Also would they hang out together if Krampus had some spare kids lying around?
Scary, probably. Krampus is powerful, but he wouldn't really stand much of a chance against any of the Great Old Ones.
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Creative Director
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How long does writing an adventure path usually take? Usually longer than a week?
I prefer to give our writers 2 to 3 months to write an Adventure Path volume. You can obviously do it in a week, but it's very difficult, stressful, and not optimal.
My own adventures when I've written them have generally taken about 3 months to finish, but I don't track the actual hours spent writing. Of course, after an adventure is written, it's not close to being done. It still needs many hours of development and editing before it's ready for public scrutiny!
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Creative Director
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Hmm, is Mhar being stuck at Mhar Massif near Xin-Shalast going to be important for New Thassilon in 2e? After we finally got Mhar stats in final part of Returns, I got idea on what to do with Lost Cities of Golarion Xin-Shalast campaign suggestions and how I would end hypothetical campagin, so I was wondering if I run homebrew campaign and end it in a way that gets Mhar transported to Fire Elemental Plane whether it means I would need to do further homebrewing with New Thassilon in 2e?
On side note, uh, what is new canon's Mhar's connection to Leng now? I mean, old info said that Mhar tried to enter Golarion and Material Plane from Leng originally, while Mhar's bestiary says it was always on Material Plane and tried to get off material plane to fire elemental plane.
For 2E stuff, you need to wait several months until we're ready to talk 2E stuff.
Aside from a quick dev pass and some suggestions, I wasn't too heavily involved in writing Mhar. I believe it's the first Great Old One that we've published that I didn't personally design, so that might explain why you see some stylistic differences I guess.
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Creative Director
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Is there an in world explanation of magic level caps? For example, why do we never hear about unique spells being created by powerful archmages or large groups that exceed the power of lv 9 spells?
Because that's as powerful as magic wielded by mortals can get. In the same way there's a cap as to what a human can lift up, or how fast a human can run, or how many potato chips a human can gobble down in one sitting. Some will do better than others (because they're higher level wizards or lifters or runners or gluttons), but there remains a cap.
Beyond that is the domain of the divine.
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Creative Director
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Are there any hidden tidbits of knowledge you can pass on about the Sinctomakti school or Rozenport? I'm planning to redirect my Strange Aeons game towards there, so some extra info could be really helpful. If there's no added info available, even a source of inspiration could be really useful
Nope. That was invented by Wes Schneider, who's no longer at Paizo. What I've done with it is limited to the outline I wrote for Strange Aeons, and I didn't even write or develop that AP, so maybe Adam, who did develop it, might have more ideas.
Any hidden tidbits of knowledge I would be able to pass on would need to be invented on the spot by me, and I'm not gonna do that because it'll clash with whatever we have written already because I'm not familiar enough with it off the top of my head to responsibly riff on the topic. Sorry!
(The inspiration for the school, of course, is Miskatonic University from Lovecraft's writings, so that, plus the Call of Cthulhu RPG, is the best place to go for more inspiration.)
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Ok, this is a bit of meta metaplot but I will ask anyway.
When D&D 2nd Edition was to end, Vecna invaded Sigil (The City at the Center of the Multiverse) trying to do something and PCs battled him and soon after 3ed Edition happened and he became a god.
Now just before Pathfinder 1E (the heir of D&D 3E) goes into Pathfinder 2E it happens again with the Whispiring Tyrant going to Absalom (The City at the center of the World) and he is trying to became a god.
So, coincidence or reference ?
Huh. I didn't know writing an adventure path would take such a long time. Wait, does that mean it takes 3 months to write a book of an adventure path(1 book), or it takes 3 months to write an entire adventure path(6 books)?
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Creative Director
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Huh. I didn't know writing an adventure path would take such a long time. Wait, does that mean it takes 3 months to write a book of an adventure path(1 book), or it takes 3 months to write an entire adventure path(6 books)?
Three months per book. That's the main reason we don't have one author write an entire thing. We wouldn't be able to keep the schedule going on a monthly release. The six authors write their six parts all at the same time.
As a general rule, we start working on an adventure path about a year and a half before the first volume is set to come out.
Paizo will publish a campaign setting book for Second Edition, right? Would that be a great chance for you to change Golarion's calendar to follow the Gregorian one?
Wizards of the Coast have published many campaign settings for Dungeons & Dragons. Will Paizo do the same? I wish there will be several new campaign settings for Pathfinder as well.
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Creative Director
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Wizards of the Coast have published many campaign settings for Dungeons & Dragons. Will Paizo do the same? I wish there will be several new campaign settings for Pathfinder as well.
Golarion was built to encompass all sorts of campaigns but be its own thing. Want horror? Check out Nidal or Ustalav. Looking for traditional fantasy? Varisia or Taldor. Pirates? Vikings? Dinosaurs? Guns? Lasers? We've got a LOT of variety baked into Golarion, and the fact that we are only publishing one setting is WHY we've been able to put so much work into it.
So ... no. Chances of us publishing a new campaign setting are very small. Competing with our own products isn't a great strategy.
Starfinder's our method instead. New game = new setting for that game.
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I know the leap year thing is off from our calendar enough that it could cause problems. I tried to fix and adjust things in Inner Sea World Guide but haven't looked at that in detail again for nearly five years, and the tone of the original question made it sound broken and made me doubt mnyself. If it DOES still work and you can just map our season starts to it with ease, then yay for working as intended.Wait what. Isn't Golarion calendar divided so that there is 3 months for each of 4 seasons? I kinda assumed you don't need to know stuff like "when is equinox or first day of autumn" when the calendar says "Rova is first month of fall, Neth is last month of fall"?
I don't know much about meteorology or astronomical stuff so maybe I'm missing a major reason of why that doesn't work ._.(well besides stuff like in south and north it should be different length of summer and winter)
The problem is people on earth use mean different dates when they refer to the beginning of the season, and this has carried through into Pathfinder. It would be good if references to the beginning of the season are references to the beginning of the specified month, (Meteorological seasons). This matches the 3 months for each season. Some regions use "Astronomical seasons" where the season starts at the equinox/solstice.
The problem is Swallowtail festival is at the equinox and the first day of autumn.
Inner Sea World Guide (p249) and Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition (p13) both have Swallowtail Festival occurring on the equinox (about 21 Rova). Inner Sea Gods (p49) both have this occurring on the first day of autumn.
I favour treating the references to Swallowtail occurring on the first day of autumn as being incorrect because that avoids midsummer also being the first day of summer.
At least it's not using the "solar seasons", which start on the cross-quarter days and would be even more confusing.
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Huh, I just thought that was either error(or retcon) and its supposed to be equinox instead of first day of autumn, I never thought that meant "On Golarion, First day of autumn IS equinox" since that didn't make sense to me. I've kinda noticed that some newer sources try retcon older sources to make situation "simpler", so I thought that was just writer for Inner Sea Gods' article being like "I can't remember when equionox is, so let's just change it to first day of fall". Though I guess it could be that "astronomical season" thing I've never heard of.
Anyway, yeah, never had problem with Golarion calendar, back to what I wanted to ask this time: Come to think of it, Reign of Winter seems to assume that Legacy of Witchwar module party lost or gave the Torc of Kostchtchie to the agent of Kostchtchie(hence why Elvanna didn't get it). Will we see in 2e what Kostchtchie will do now that he has his Torc back?(though I don't think he can free his soul from it without Baba Yaga's help)
If there were no heroes to thwart the Yamasoth cultists’ effort to resurrect Krune, how would Krune have reacted to their demands for his resurrection?
Is Queen Ileosa the closest analog to Sorshen back in CE heyday?
Will Sorshen be inclined to keep Karzoug’s visage looming over Xin-Shalast, as a part of rembering the old Thassilon?
What caused Xanderghul to slay the other two runelords during the schism that almost led to civil war? I know what the runelord of wrath did, but I can’t recall the reasons that the other two were slain.
Which Game of Thrones character death has affected you the most, positively or negatively?
You are the master of the Pathfinder setting, thus I should ask you regarding the flavor of the Golarion universe. Rob Mccreary is the master of the Starfinder setting, thus I should ask him regarding the flavor of the Absalom Station Universe. John Compton is the master of the Pathfinder Society Scenarios, thus I should ask him regarding the flavor of the PFS. Then who would be the master of the Pathfinder Tales? I want to ask several flavor wise questions regarding several novels(mostly when this event happened, when this character was born, et cetera).
A cleric can't cast spells of an alignment opposed to her own or her deity's. Is this because their god chooses not to grant those powers, or because their god can not provide those powers? Or something different?
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Creative Director
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I know the leap year thing is off from our calendar enough that it could cause problems. I tried to fix and adjust things in Inner Sea World Guide but haven't looked at that in detail again for nearly five years, and the tone of the original question made it sound broken and made me doubt mnyself. If it DOES still work and you can just map our season starts to it with ease, then yay for working as intended.Wait what. Isn't Golarion calendar divided so that there is 3 months for each of 4 seasons? I kinda assumed you don't need to know stuff like "when is equinox or first day of autumn" when the calendar says "Rova is first month of fall, Neth is last month of fall"?
I don't know much about meteorology or astronomical stuff so maybe I'm missing a major reason of why that doesn't work ._.(well besides stuff like in south and north it should be different length of summer and winter)
The problem is people on earth use mean different dates when they refer to the beginning of the season, and this has carried through into Pathfinder. It would be good if references to the beginning of the season are references to the beginning of the specified month, (Meteorological seasons). This matches the 3 months for each season. Some regions use "Astronomical seasons" where the season starts at the equinox/solstice.
The problem is Swallowtail festival is at the equinox and the first day of autumn.
Inner Sea World Guide (p249) and Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition (p13) both have Swallowtail Festival occurring on the equinox (about 21 Rova). Inner Sea Gods (p49) both have this occurring on the first day of autumn.
I favour treating the references to Swallowtail occurring on the first day of autumn as being incorrect because that avoids midsummer also being the first day of summer.
At least it's not using the "solar seasons", which start on the cross-quarter days and would be even more confusing.
I get it, but let's keep this thread to questions, not back and forth discussions... otherwise it'll get too complicated for me to manage.
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Creative Director
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Come to think of it, Reign of Winter seems to assume that Legacy of Witchwar module party lost or gave the Torc of Kostchtchie to the agent of Kostchtchie(hence why Elvanna didn't get it). Will we see in 2e what Kostchtchie will do now that he has his Torc back?(though I don't think he can free his soul from it without Baba Yaga's help)
Maybe. Again, questions about 2nd edition, be they rules or world lore, need to wait for a few months until we're ready to start that discussion.
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Creative Director
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If there were no heroes to thwart the Yamasoth cultists’ effort to resurrect Krune, how would Krune have reacted to their demands for his resurrection?
Honestly I think he'd deny the request. Fits his personality to be too lazy to come back to life.
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Creative Director
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What caused Xanderghul to slay the other two runelords during the schism that almost led to civil war? I know what the runelord of wrath did, but I can’t recall the reasons that the other two were slain.
If we didn't say in part six of Return of the Runelords, then it's not something that I really put details into. Other than that pride was likely involved.
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Creative Director
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Which Game of Thrones character death has affected you the most, positively or negatively?
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Creative Director
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You are the master of the Pathfinder setting, thus I should ask you regarding the flavor of the Golarion universe. Rob Mccreary is the master of the Starfinder setting, thus I should ask him regarding the flavor of the Absalom Station Universe. John Compton is the master of the Pathfinder Society Scenarios, thus I should ask him regarding the flavor of the PFS. Then who would be the master of the Pathfinder Tales? I want to ask several flavor wise questions regarding several novels(mostly when this event happened, when this character was born, et cetera).
Master is not a word I'm comfortable with, honestly. "Creative Director" is my position, not "Master". As a creative director, I direct and guide the world's development, but I don't lay down laws and make demands and expect obedience. The setting and game are not ONLY the product of my creativity... if it were, it would be a quite different setting than what got published—one that wouldn't be nearly as popular, I assume.
Pathfinder Tales is currently on hiatus, and the previous two editors who worked on the line the most no longer work at Paizo, so at this point there's no one at Paizo who you can ask for deep dive questions about novel lore. Some of us know quite a bit about one or two novels, but there's no one institutional knowledge source at this time to interrogate for deep insight.
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Creative Director
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A cleric can't cast spells of an alignment opposed to her own or her deity's. Is this because their god chooses not to grant those powers, or because their god can not provide those powers? Or something different?
It's because the cleric shouldn't do that if the cleric wants to remain a worshiper. Casting spells opposing your deity's alignment is possible—the gods will allow this, since they allow free will, but doing so will put you in danger of alignment shift. The way the rules handle this is simply by not letting clerics do this, which is somewhat of a kludge, but a necessary one since we don't have hard and fast rules for GMs to follow and enforce when PCs are played grossly out of alignment.